Some anti-Freeman links

A few posts below, Ron links to some articles defending the appointment of Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council. The New Republic’s Martin Peretz provides some links to critics of Freeman and offers his own two cents in a blog post entitled "Chas Freeman Is Bigoted and Out of Touch":

That Freeman would be chosen as the president’s gatekeeper to national intelligence is an absurdity. It would be as if I were appointed the gatekeeper to that intelligence.

Among Peretz’s links is this piece by Gabriel Schoenfeld in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal:

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Freeman has views about Middle East policy that differ rather sharply from those held by supporters of the state of Israel. More surprisingly, they also differ rather sharply from the views — or at least the views stated during the campaign — of the president who has invited him to serve. …

We have already seen a string of poorly vetted appointments from the Obama White House, like those of Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson, that after public scrutiny were tossed under the bus. The chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council differs from those cases, for it does not require Senate confirmation. If someone with such extreme views has been appointed to such a sensitive position, is this a reflection of Mr. Obama’s true predilections, or is it proof positive that the Obama White House has never gotten around to vetting its own vetters?

Either way, if those complaining loudest about politicized intelligence have indeed placed a China-coddling Israel basher in charge of drafting the most important analyses prepared by the U.S. government, it is quite a spectacle. The problem is not that Mr. Freeman will shade National Intelligence Estimates to suit the administration’s political views. The far more serious danger is that he will steer them to reflect his own outlandish perspectives and prejudices.

The "China-coddling" remark is a reference to Freeman’s thoughts on the Tiananmen Square massacre, which were contained in an e-mail the Weekly Standard prints:

I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than — as would have been both wise and efficacious — to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo’s response to the mob scene at "Tian’anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

The Weekly Standard has more quotes from Freeman here, including this one on Hamas and Hezbollah:

I’m a very practical man, and my concern is simply this: that there are movements, like Hamas, like Hezbollah, that in recent decades have not done anything against the United States or Americans, even though the United States supports their enemy, Israel. By openly stating and taking action to make them–to declare that we are their enemy, we invite them to extend their operations in the United States or against Americans abroad.